


Signs

by Chisza



Category: The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Genre: F/M, Far Future, Gen, Quiet love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chisza/pseuds/Chisza
Summary: Their partnership was forged in blood and fire and magic. But will it survive?
Relationships: Chloe/Kaulder
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Signs

Despite what anyone thought, she and Kauldur did _not_ fall into bed together the minute they locked the heart up. Hell, they didn't even end up living in the same apartment until after Dolan the Thirty-Six retired for the second time.

For one thing, there was the fallout of Kauldur's resignation from the Axe and Cross to deal with. For another, the ripples of the Queen's brief resurrection kept echoing through the world of witches and warlocks. So many small fires to put out, with barely enough time to breathe in between, much less get up to any bedroom hijinks.

Well, she amended the thought, not with each other. Eight hundred years on his side, only thirty on hers. There were a lot of rough edges to file off as they learned to work together. Arguments. Differences in style. Differences in _power_. Only there did she feel able to keep up with the immortal human, and that only barely. He carried encyclopedic knowledge in his head, whether he knew it or not, and he used it all as he hunted the witches who'd gotten it into their heads that they could run rampant after the death of the Witch Counsel. Chloe had her potions, a few spells she'd managed to learn before she ran away from home, and her gift.

Which, when it came down to the brass tacks, was the main reason it took her the better part of forty years to end up in Kauldur's bedroom with any more intent than "It's ten in the morning, will you get up already we're late for a meeting." _Those_ sporadic visits sometimes involved an embarrassed flight attendant, but usually not. For all his philandering, he was very much a one and done sort of man. Thanks, had a good time, I'll call you a cab. And so on.

His heart still lay eight hundred years in the past. The women scratched an itch. A considerable itch, given some of the stories Dolan the Thirty-Six told her about how often he ended up stuck in the lobby. Chloe herself learned early to bring a book or something, because she'd get the same sort of run around.

It was one thing to partner with him to hunt the witches who stepped outside the law. It was another to push her way into his private life and invite snide remarks about 'your woman' from the stewardesses, waitresses, and other assorted random hookups as they wafted in and out of his apartment.

Ok, to be honest, she'd made that mistake once. Precisely once. The _look_ on his face, as the pert little blond shimmied back into her skirt and groused about girlfriends and cheaters. That look. Chloe'd seen his wife. Seen his daughter. He kept that beat up medallion right where he could see it, no matter where he was in the apartment. The painting on the wall of his bedroom, with the glowing toy bird held aloft in a child's hand.

How much work had it taken for the artist to capture that light? How much had it hurt for Kauldur to give the description when he commissioned the thing?

So, no. She didn't fall madly in love with him at word go. They didn't come together in a flare of passion and torn clothing fit for any of the romances she thumbed through in the bookstores. What they had was gradual. Something she still couldn't name. And after today, she didn't know if she regretted the time it had taken, or if she was glad that they'd waited so long to come together in that final binding.

Sitting here in the deceptively comfortable chair, waiting yet again because of their choices, she wasn't sure what he'd say either.

She just knew that eventually, they had to have this out.

>>><<<

It wasn't going to be as simple as just walking into the apartment and saying "Hey, we need to talk." For one thing, even after they got the first kick of repressed hormones out of the way, they'd never made any sort of exclusivity agreement. Mainly because of her condition. When eternity is staring you in the face, the thought of being forever tied to someone could be…suffocating to say the least.

Those first few years, after her first major injury healed right before their eyes, she'd been worse than a teenager. Reckless. Wild. Angry and afraid all at once. The Witch Queen stole her mortality, damn it all. She couldn't just stomp her foot and demand it be returned. Well, not where Kauldur or Thirty-Sixth could hear. She didn't need either of them to remind her that _she_ was the one who argued against Kauldur's final death. Not given what she'd seen while stuck in the Witch Queen's spell.

Not considering the nightmares those visions still gave her, years and years later.

As it turned out, she didn't need to pitch a fit where they could see. Kauldur wasn't easily fooled, and Thirty-Sixth's _job_ was to niggle out the details. So, it was no surprise when she woke up one chilly June morning, half frozen in a pool of glacier water somewhere in the back end of Norway. No surprise at all to see Kauldur crouched over her, sympathy in his eyes and a heavy coat in his hands. She'd taken care of the witch she'd come to kill, but the frozen sprays of blood scattered over the ice stood silent testament just to how bad the fight had gone.

At least when one of them got hurt, the other didn't feel it. She didn't know what she might have done if he knew down to the cellular level just how many liters of alcohol she poured down her throat that first night she knew she was immortal. Only Thirty-Sixth had seen her in _that_ state, and only because he insisted on taking their reports separately for the sake of "not confusing the records". She'd been embarrassed since, and more than once. Nothing quite touched the mortification of opening her door to the priest while wearing only her underwear and the half-digested chunks of a pizza mixed with more whiskey than the human body was meant to consume.

At least she'd been spared the feeling of drowning in her own vomit as her body healed itself. That one came later, after the water witch with the hate-on for humans tried to raise a tsunami on Hokkaido. Bitch managed a wave alright, but forgot that she needed to get the heck out of the way when it hit.

Chloe sighed and fidgeted with the strap of her purse. She was spending too much time thinking today, but what else was there to do? She wasn't much for reading on a phone or tablet. If she'd had time, she would have grabbed a book, and laughed to herself at Kauldur's probable reaction to seeing her holding one.

Relics. Antiques. In truth now, even more than when Thirty-Sixth had been alive. She tried to keep some of the old priest's habits alive, just to tweak Kauldur's nose. Recording their missions was another thing she did by hand. Thank God they had the money for paper and ink these days. 

Chloe let the smile fade. Another day she might have been up for the humor of it. Having a minor argument about preserving old levels of tech wouldn't make what came after any easier.

She fidgeted with her hands in her lap and sighed. How much would this change things? How would this shift them from the comfortable ease they'd found in occupying the same space and, mostly, the same bed? They didn't even argue about who stole the covers anymore. Their mattress was a monster. She'd gotten lost in it more than once, trying to find her way out with her eyes glued shut by sleep.

She didn't want him to think she'd done this on purpose. It was still even odds that he'd be gutted. What would she do then? Walk away? Carry on by herself? They couldn't go back to being just partners. She didn't have it in her, even if he did.

Someone came in the door, a draft of street air wafting through after them. Chloe wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of hot tar, rotting garbage, and windless heat. The air processors in the foyer helped, but not much. Not enough. Some of the wealthier buildings had actual airlocks, to cycle out the soup outside and replace it with the canned and sanitized air from the building's ventilation system. Not this one.

She could have gone somewhere else. She could afford it now, since Kauldur'd pointed her at a discreet firm that could handle her money and multiply it a thousand-fold. It still wasn't what he owed her for the bar and the memory potion, but over the years her small seed had weathered the various ups and downs of the markets. She wasn't at risk of becoming destitute on the street. Not anymore. No matter how things went.

She'd stayed away from the higher priced places because they were also where money _talked_. Economy crashing, yet again. More and more noise being made about settling space. Witches weren't the ones making the loudest noise about the environment anymore. Hadn't been for a long time. Everyone knew the planet was on its last legs, from the youngest child to the oldest granny tottering down the street to the tune of "You killed the world and left it for us!" sung at her back by any passersby with a grievance.

The world was dead. Or nearly there. Magic rooted in earth barely worked any more. Water spells were as likely to poison the caster as they were to evaporate in a puff of foul-smelling steam. Air spells went corrosive or drifted into nothingness.

Only fire, of the four elements, burned bright. Not clean, given the materials used to cast it, but it burned. It was rapidly becoming the favorite tool of dark witches, even above Necromancy. Dark spells still needed things like plants and bugs.

Fire consumed all.

She wondered, sometimes, if there wasn't a coven in the Space Force. If NASA and its associated agencies around the world weren't infiltrated in some way. The political surface of the globe remained cracked and fissured by conflict, but space was the one thing they all seemed to agree on.

Get out.

Go far away.

Find new worlds.

Some even talked of being able to terraform rocks that wouldn't otherwise hold life. She'd lost track of how many planets people'd tagged up as possible new homes.

She wouldn't be at all surprised if witches were holding the whole plan together in people's minds. There was enough fire these days to fuel the imagination of thousands at a time.

But neither she nor Kauldur could catch them at it, and she wasn't inclined to sneak onto that island in Florida and check the launch pad for gigantic runes. Or any of the other launch sites around the world, for that matter.

The end would come someday. One way or another, the Witch Queen would have the last laugh.

Chloe knew it. Kauldur knew it. The awareness sang between them and the heart still beating in his vault, setting the magic purified air of the apartment nearly vibrating with the tension.

Maybe that was why. Maybe the knowledge that the end was coming. That they might finally be able to rest. That he could die and see his wife and daughter again.

Maybe that was why they'd come together so fiercely these past few months.

And why she was sitting here, waiting.

Because if she was right, the end of what she had with him was going to come much sooner than she'd ever expected.

The door opened again. Another draft of air. Someone nearby coughed. Probably got a faceful of it. Chloe waited a few seconds, mouth held shut so she wouldn't accidentally taste the foul air.

Then she lost the small contest she'd been having with her lungs as a familiar pair of boots walked up and stopped in front of her. The breath of air she took in smelled worse than the first time. She didn't notice, too absorbed in cussing herself to worry about the insult to her nasal passages.

"Hey." Kauldur crouched down and peered up at his face. "Been looking for you."

"Well you found me," she griped. Sarcasm and snide remarks. Always her first defense. He knew it too. But he waited until all the cussing in her head ran itself out and she came out of panicked bird mode. Not that she had anywhere to run, but that always seemed to be her second reaction. At least when he was the one doing the surprising.

Apparently satisfied that she wouldn't to mow him over, or boot him in the face, or even start cussing him out loud, her partner rose and settled into the empty chair beside her. She spared an internal wince for his wool coat and the layer of ever-present grime it'd pick up from the chair. He never seemed to care. But she had a little more invested in keeping nice things nice. She'd spent the first half of her life scrambling for everything she had.

"So, what're you doing?" The rumble of his voice was teasing. If she looked up, she'd see a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

She'd also see actual concern and maybe a bit of true worry in his eyes.

She didn't want him to find out like this. Didn't want to tell him at all until she was absolutely certain. She would have gone in, gotten her answer, and been able to come up with a suitable speech on her way to the apartment. Now? Well, she couldn't lie to him. She might on small things, such as how many shoes she planned to cram into the closet at their next apartment. Or what happened to the last of the whiskey he'd been saving. But not this.

Never this.

Chloe opened her mouth to speak. The words lost their way somewhere between her lungs and her voice box. She closed her mouth. Tried again. This time she managed an incoherent squeak. And faintly, a small "Damn it."

"Chloe?" He wrapped strong fingers around her palm and rubbing his thumb lightly over the tendons on the back of her hand. "What's wrong?"

There was the worry. Next on the agenda came skepticism. Neither of them needed to be here in the normal course of things.

She let him keep hold of her hand, concentrating on the feel of his skin against hers as an anchor for what she had to do next. Bending over, she dug with shaking fingers in the cavernous pit she called a purse. She found the plastic bag and took a deep breath, praying to God and anyone else that might be listening that she was doing the right thing.

Then, before she could let the doubts paralyze her, Chloe sat up and offered him the bag.

It was his turn to freeze.

And in that wild moment, while he was trying to process what she held, all the suppressed worries bloomed in Chloe's mind. Had anyone given him one of these before? Was she not the first in over eight _hundred_ years? Were there others that he'd known of and walked away from? Was he still, _still_ so heartbroken over the loss of Helen and Elizabeth that he'd closed off his heart to all but the most casual of friendships?

And she realized, right there, between the _thu-_ and the _thump_ of her heart beating, that she loved him. That if he left her, she would hurt in ways she couldn't imagine. For years. Eternity even.

And she still didn't have the right to ask him to destroy the Queen's heart and spare her that.

All these years of living, and she still couldn't act like a grown-up about this.

He didn't notice her pause. He was still staring at the bag and its contents, helpfully labeled for the naïve and forgetful.

"It's." Her voice broke and she swallowed before trying again. "It's not…for sure. That's why I'm…" She trailed off as he took the bag and the stick inside as gently as he'd pick up an actual baby. She knew. She'd seen him with children. He loved them.

Would he love hers?

One of the interior doors open. A woman called a name. Chloe blinked and realized it was _her_ name. At least the one she was using this decade. She fumbled for her purse with one hand, then stood. Kauldur let her other hand slip out of his grip as if he didn't even notice her move.

Her stomach dropped to the region of her feet. This was it, then. She had her answer. Should she even bother getting it confirmed?

The nurse called her name again. Chloe stumbled forward, not sure which direction she was headed.

Someone steadied her. Blinking, she looked up.

Kauldur smiled down at her. It wasn't radiant and full of happiness. But it was a smile, no matter the fact that his eyes were full of worry. "Come on," he said. "Maybe if they run the test fast enough, they can give us a due date too."

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Just a bit of musing on possibilities and likelihoods of how things went after the end of the movie. I liked that they didn't have a sweeping romantic love story resolved in an hour and a half. But I do think that theirs might be quieter and longer. As always, not my toys, just a sandbox I'm playing with.


End file.
